Alex Shepherd

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting that the official opposition was concerned about the numbers of government members in the House for this debate. I was wondering about the arithmetic but I stand corrected, I thought there was no opposition member where in fact there is one.

It gives me great pleasure to enter this debate on Bill C-63, an act to amend our Citizenship Act. I understand that the Citizenship Act has not been amended since 1947.

It is an interesting day to have this debate because yesterday was flag day to honour the 34th birthday of our great flag. It was my privilege to be part of a number of celebrations that occurred in my riding yesterday. It is something I have been promoting. When this first came about, only one school in my riding celebrated it and now about 10 schools are celebrating flag day. Hopefully some day it will be a national holiday and a national event for Canadians to celebrate another part of their heritage.

Canada is a young country in the family of nations. At the same time we are continuing to evolve and build our traditions. A number of issues come out when I look at one aspect of the bill, clause 34 which deals with the oath of citizenship.

When I was first elected I went to a lot of citizenship ceremonies. Sadly there are not as many in my riding now because the judge system has changed. It was a tremendous event. Young and old people came to this country not because they were forced to but through selection. They wanted to come here for a very important reason. They wanted to leave possibly a poorer lifestyle to come and share in our lifestyle, our culture and our traditions. They wanted very much to be part of this country.

Those were great celebrations. There were people from all over the world who had spent five years in this country and had taken the time to study our history, our traditions and our culture. It was such an important day in their lives to swear allegiance to this country and to take their position along with the rest of us, having no less rights and freedoms than anyone else in this country. For anyone who has attended those ceremonies, it cannot help but be an uplifting experience to see what a great country this is. I sometimes think one of the problems is that not enough Canadians go overseas to really appreciate what a great country Canada is.

When I look at the oath of citizenship I see three themes. Strangely enough, I have studied the oaths in other countries and the themes are somewhat similar.

The first deals with respect for our democratic traditions. Canadians have developed their own unique traditions. We have certainly borrowed from other countries in the past. Notably the British common law system and also the French civil law system are a part of our culture. We have developed on that footing to evolve our own democratic traditions and ideals which has taken us over 100 years to do. What is important is that we have done that within Canada, Canadians dealing with each other, making comprises with each other and trying to understand each other and evolving their political traditions.

Another theme seems to be rights and freedoms. Those same people I talked about who came to this country very much understand what it is like to have rights and freedoms. They may possibly have come from countries that did not have those rights and freedoms. Canadians developed their own charter of rights and freedoms. In this place and in other legislatures in this country we have developed a whole body of rights and freedoms which we commonly respect.

The other theme seems essentially to be a respect for our laws. In other words we swear an oath saying we believe that even if the laws of the country are not just, we agree to abide by them and try to work within the political system to change them. However, at first blush we accept the laws of our country and we will respect them.

I have studied this issue of oath because it interested me. In Carswell's Canadian Law Dictionary the definition is the basic purpose of an oath is to bind the consciousness of the witness. In other words, the conscience of the person who is taking this oath tells him that he must respect the rights and freedoms of these people. Canadians respect their laws and respect their democratic values. This is a very powerful statement of people.

What I am alluding to is that section 34 does not quite address what I think is an important aspect. That is Canadians have developed all the functions of a legal framework. There have been Canadians who have taken some of those traditions, evolved them and made them into something unique.

As we face the next millennium which is months away it seems appropriate that Canadians stand up and make their statement that their oath of allegiance is to Canada. It partially says that but it goes a little further. My colleague who just spoke specifically mentioned the oath.

After the last election I made a certain point to go beyond the so-called oath of the House of Commons. It is important because it is more significant than the traditional oath. I said that I do solemnly affirm my true allegiance to Canada in conformity with the Constitution of Canada. Something to this effect is a more appropriate oath for Canadians.

Some people will mention the monarchy. I am not opposed. I am not an anti-monarchist. I am pro-Canadian. It is time for Canadians to stand up and have an allegiance to their country which does not involve the head of state of another country, that of Great Britain.

What I suggest to the government is that we propose some sort of amendment to this legislation that will recognize that the oath of citizenship is to Canada only and to no other country. It has always seemed absurd to me when I listen to some of these people taking this oath of citizenship. Some of them did come from the United Kingdom. I know what was going through their minds. What they often asked me was what had they done. They thought they were coming to a new country. They wanted to share in our culture and traditions but they had to swear their allegiance to the monarch they left. They did not understand what we were doing as a country. I had to agree with them.

This is not anti-anything. A lot of people get involved in the emotions of all this. Nobody can steal our tradition as a people. We have had a linkage of history with the British commonwealth as we have with France. I am not talking about doing away with it. Canada can continue to be part of the British commonwealth. But as a small token of the realization that we are going into the 21st century we should as a minimum change this oath so it clearly swears allegiance solely to Canada, Canada's democratic traditions that Canadians have developed of themselves, Canada's rights and freedoms that we have developed by ourselves and those traditions that talk about our loyalty to our laws and upholding the laws of Canada that we evolved and developed.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, February 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about what I deduce he believes are instant citizens. In other words, once a person comes to this country that is the automatic acceptance of their commitment to our country.

I know the process is established to ensure that the person living here becomes familiar with our customs, our culture and our history. I think that is very important and they can actually prove they have taken the time and made the effort to learn who we are as a people before they declare their citizenship.

I was surprised at the member's cavalier attitude that once someone is landed in this country we should suddenly grant them citizenship. Is that the thrust of the member's argument?

[Supply, February 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, it is an issue the government has recognized as a problem. We are moving in a direction to eradicate it. I do not think it will disappear overnight. It will take time.

I have another observation which is often given by the real opponents to fixing the system, to index the taxation system may well lead to inflation, in other words what creates inflationary pressures. I remember the days when everybody's labour contracts were specifically tied to the consumer price index. When the consumer price index went up 7% their wages went up 7%. Wages went up 7% and the products they bought in the store went up 7%. We got into an inflationary spiral. There is an argument within the taxation system that said we are trying to control things at zero or break even inflationary rate, so why should we index the taxation system which may well lead to a cascading effect? I am not a strong believer in that argument but it is an argument that we have to take into account.

[Supply, February 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, according to my reading of the coastal fisheries issue no matter what coast you are on in Canada there are no more fish. We can talk about it being a terrible thing that the fishery is in decline but the bottom line is there are no more fish.

We really need aggressive policies to ensure there are different resources available so we can restructure and diversify these economies. That is happening but it may be happening a little slower than it should be. The Nova Scotia Technical College is a great resource for the people of Nova Scotia to glean that knowledge.

The regional disparity in Canada in this age of the information highway is ridiculous. It does not really matter where you live in this country, everybody should have equal access to those skills that will sustain them over a good number of years.

[Supply, February 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly happy to participate in this very important debate on the issue not only of child poverty but of our income tax system.

Once again I think the member for Shefford has brought to the floor of the House her concerns and indeed the concerns of many people in this country to deal with the issue of child poverty.

First I would like to talk about the issue of bracket creep, and issue which has been thrown around the House. I do not think a lot of people fully understand what bracket creep means. Back in 1984 when inflation was something like 10% the then government in its wisdom decided that it would only index the taxation system to the extent that it exceeded three percentage points. At the time that meant a 7% address to the inflationary factor. In those days it did not seem like a big problem.

Of course it is the stated policy today of the Bank of Canada to keep our inflation rate within a very specific band of between 1% and 2%. Consequently the entire inflation that is occurring within the Canadian economy is not being recognized in the income tax system.

It is an insidious growth because of course we think of 3% as not being a lot of money in any one particular year, but obviously over a 10-year period it is a very significant amount. As years have gone by and the issue of bracket creep has constantly impacted on the system this disparity has become greater and greater.

I looked at some of these numbers and the total cost of doing away with the problem in income brackets that it affected. I was struck with how the peaks of this tax had gone from little bumps on the graph to significantly huge amounts, and it continues to do so. These brackets and tax escalation occur around the income tax brackets themselves in a change of income of $30,000 and at $65,000. The total money that our taxation authority gleans from the process is about $840 million. So that is an answer to the Conservatives who refuse to answer the question on how much would it cost to solve this problem.

The real issue is, is that money an entitlement of our tax collection system? Quite frankly it is not. It is taxation on increases in income that never in fact occurred. People's income rose, if they were so fortunate to have it do so in keeping up with inflation and many people were not, but their tax brackets did not. At the same time so did the consumer price index. They have had a constant squeeze on their disposable income and we keep taxing them. There are some tremendous examples of where people whose income rose $900 in a year actually saw their tax burden increase $1,400. That is an overview of the problem.

Quite frankly, I do not think if anybody is honest about it they will think that is not a systemic problem within the taxation system.

The next question is how do we solve it? Those of us who are bold enough and do not have any responsibility for the system itself will say fix it and will pay the $850 million or almost $1 billion.

The reality of government finances is that we cannot fix it all at once. I am very hopeful that we will fix it slowly over a period of time. It has taken since 1984 for it to get embedded in our system. It may take two or three years to get it back out of our system. I think the government's intentions are well founded to try and do that. The members on this side have been veracious in trying to move some of those amendments.

The issue of child poverty is something that bothers all of us. I have heard people in this House asking what the definition is and how do we define it. It gets very difficult. Various people mentioned the United Nations declaration of income levels and said it is very hard to hold the government's feet to the fire because there is no real definition, and we talk about low income cutoffs. That is the problem we in government see reported across Canada.

The reality is that $20,000 can buy more goods in one part of the country than somewhere else. A $20,000 income to somebody living in downtown Toronto no question is poverty. I have had farm clients over the years who made $20,000 and have lived quite well, but of course they are eating their own produce and so forth. When we talk about using low income levels to define poverty there are discrepancies.

There is another thing that has always bothered me about this issue. When people talk about child poverty, I think what they are really talking about is child neglect or child nutritional problems. There must be another way to measure the nutrition of our youth. That is really the problem.

I have talked to nurses and teachers in my riding. I have discovered that it is not necessarily low income people, although there would be a high quotient related to income levels, but there are also people in the so-called middle income bracket whose kids are not getting the proper nutrition. It is a bigger problem than just setting out low income levels.

I would like to get us off this stereotype debate with the New Democratic Party saying to just redistribute all the income and the problem will go away. The issue has changed tremendously over the years between this business about rich and poor, between a knowledge based society and a lack of knowledge society.

When people phone me and say they cannot get a job, that they are living in poverty and so forth, invariably the first question is what is their educational background, how much investment have they personally put into their human capital. If they are in what we think is the high risk area, because we are responsible for the employment insurance system, ages 17 to 24, invariably they have very little education.

What obligations do governments have to solve this so-called disparity between rich and poor? We have to encourage people even at a very young age. Of course, they have to be properly fed for their brains to absorb knowledge, but we have to instil at a very young age and a consistent age a greater celebration of the importance of getting a better education.

I do not have to tell the members here that this is a provincial jurisdiction. This is the problem in this issue. When it comes to our problem, adults are standing outside our doors complaining to us that the provincial education system may well have failed them in the past. How do we as legislators do a quick fix of that? There is no real quick fix. The scholarship millennium fund was hotly debated in this House.

The reality is that is one way in which the federal government can be proactive in looking at people who for some reason whether economic or otherwise cannot get a better education. The government can step in and say we realize we have a basic obligation to you to get you a good education and to ensure that you and your children will be able to plug yourselves into the basic economy and earn a living from it.

We cannot keep thinking about this debate as just a matter of money. It is a matter of human capital. As legislators we should spend a little more time trying to find programs to increase the nutrition of our young people and to ensure they have the skills to make sure this is a problem that will eventually go away.

[Supply, February 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, as I listened to the dialogue between the two members it occurred to me that the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot did not answer the question so I will repeat it for him because obviously he did not hear it. It must be the only reason that he would not reply to it.

The question was whether provinces should be allowed to claw back the increased tax benefit zeroed in on tax credits for child tax credit.

This is very appropriate because that is exactly what Ontario has done. As we know through some of our discussions on the social union, this is where we lose the whole concept of our policy even though we in our good intentions in this House may well say we should increase the tax credit to ensure that money gets into the hands of low income families. It means nothing if the province turns around and says that under its social assistance system that is additional income entering the household and therefore it will reduce the social assistance payment.

How does the member want to address it? Will he answer the question or not?

[Supply, February 11th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member for Shefford. If my memory serves me correctly, this is not the first time we have debated this issue in the House and I congratulate her for bringing this issue once again before the House for debate.

I have been very concerned about the issue of bracket creep which is more or less what she is talking about. I do not want to play cheap politics, but I was taken aback when she said that she and Joe Clark were outside yesterday with the poor on Parliament Hill. I thought: Where was Mr. Clark in 1984 when legislation was introduced which created bracket creep?

This problem was created by that party. That party, in its wisdom, said it was not going to index anything unless it was over 3 percentage points. She is absolutely correct that since that time low income families of the country have been devastated by a constant erosion of their incomes.

Worse than that, this party has created a poverty trap which people cannot get out of. In other words if someone is making something like $10,000 or $15,000 and wants to make an extra dollar, the marginal rate of tax is 50%.

Her motion talks about assisting self-sufficiency. I agree with her that we have to something about it, but she should not stand and say that she and Mr. Clark were very concerned about the poor people outside this door the other day. Mr. Clark was sitting in these very chairs as a minister when that legislation was passed.

I always hear about the great wonderful things we should do. How much will it cost? Has she done her homework? Can she tell me how many taxpayers dollars it will cost to implement the message she is talking about today?

[Program Cost Declaration Act, February 11th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-476, an act to provide for improved information on the cost of proposed government programs.

Madam Speaker, this bill is a second attempt on a bill that was brought up in the previous parliament which went as far as the committee stage. This bill attempts to empower the House in the sense that it requires all legislation and new programs introduced by the government to be costed. That costing or the anticipation of that cost is then scrutinized by the auditor general. It essentially allows us as legislators to understand the basic costs of new programs.

More important, it allows us as legislators to go back to our constituents and to explain to them how much new types of government programs are costing.

I do not believe there are very many people in the House or in the country who do not demand greater accountability for government. That is what this legislation would do.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Holidays Act, February 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I think we have had a very useful debate today.

The members of the Bloc will not necessarily be supportive of the legislation. It was interesting to listen to the member as she talked about times when singing O Canada in that great province and because of the flag's association with the monarchy Quebecers felt that it was just too late to make that change, so they opted for another flag, the flag of the province of Quebec. I do not want to get into an argument about flags but the flag of Quebec of course is a monarchical symbol, the monarchy of France, so it seems unusual to me.

Similarly the New Democratic Party has its own wish list. It wants to recognize the women's movement. As I listened to the debate by the opposition I reflected and wondered what it must have been like back in 1964 when everybody had some reason not to proceed with the flag debate. They wanted to keep it the way it way it was, and we should be honouring some other group within our society. I am not saying that the member of the New Democratic Party did not have a good argument, but the reality is our flag unites all of us, women, men, everyone under one flag.

The member from the Reform Party thought that it was inappropriate to have just one day for celebration, that we should be celebrating this within our bodies every day. I suppose we could say the same thing about Christmas which of course is a national holiday. If one is a Christian why should there be a Christian holiday called Christmas? It should be something that is inside a person every day and there should not be a specific statutory holiday for that reason. The reality is that is what people have holidays for, to celebrate the things they think are unique in life.

The debate in the House is amazing. Other countries celebrate flag days because they are proud of their countries: Argentina, Finland, Haiti, Liberia, Panama, Paraguay, and the list goes on. Yet here we have this intellectual debate about why we cannot have a statutory holiday. I think that is unfortunate.

My concern was that it was not a votable motion. It would be great to carry on this debate for another two hours. I wonder if I could seek unanimous consent to continue the debate by making it a votable motion.

[Holidays Act, February 10th, 1999]

moved that Bill C-401, an act to amend the Holidays Act (Flag Day) and to make consequential amendments to other acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to discuss Bill C-401. This is not the first time I have introduced this legislation. It is not even the first time that similar legislation has been presented before the Chamber. I had an identical bill in the previous parliament that was votable but unfortunately it died on the order paper when the election was called.

For members here and for those watching us tonight, some may immediately jump to the obvious conclusion that there is such a thing as a flag day. Flag day is the third Monday of February or February 15. My legislation talks about making it the third Monday. Flag day is recognized on the February 15, which is the very day the flag rose over our nation in 1965 for the first time. Indeed the current Prime Minister proclaimed a day called flag day. The difference between that and my bill is that my bill seeks to make flag day a national holiday. That is to say that people would have the day off work to celebrate this event.

The background of this has a lot of history in this Chamber. It goes back as far as 1980 when my colleague in a previous session, Warren Allmand, presented a bill much the same as this. Back in those days they called this heritage day and indeed we have a heritage day as well which falls on the third Monday of February. This of course causes some confusion among people. I look at flag day as being a culmination of heritage day to recognize the heritage of all cultural groups in Canada under one flag.

Then there is a string of similar suggestions by the New Democratic Party. Stanley Knowles presented this legislation at one time, as did Ian Deans. A special consideration for my former professor. I have a bachelor of commerce degree but I always took political science just down the road here at Carleton University and in those days my political science professor for about three of those years was Dr. Pauline Jewett, which I know rings a happy note with some of my colleagues across the way. I can say that Dr. Jewett was somewhat responsible for leading me into the area of politics. It took a long time for me to remember some of her words and come back to this place, but it is in somewhat of her honour that I am able to stand in my place and present her very bill, although I now call it flag day as opposed to heritage day.

Mr. Speaker, sitting on either side of you is the Canadian flag. I have been very happy, every day I have been in the House, to wear this lapel pin, the Canadian flag. I have been very proud of my country and its symbols.

The flag is more than a simple piece of coloured cloth. It is the epitome of who we are as a country. It is a symbol. Canada is very much a young country. For some of us 1867 may seem like a long time ago but in reality, when we compare it to countries like Greece or European countries, our history is quite young. It is very important that a country, as it is evolving, evolves symbols of its unity as symbols of its people. I do not think there is any stronger symbol in Canada than our flag.

I know all of us have travelled to foreign countries and there is no question of the identity, when one is wearing that flag, of who one is, where one is from. Most important, it is not about geography, it is about what kind of people that represents, caring people who created this incredible country on the north half of the North American continent, the second largest geographical country in the world with tremendous democratic traditions over a short period of time. It has become the envy of the world. The Prime Minister often refers to the United Nations accreditation that Canada is deemed the best country in the world for its social services and so forth. This is really about agreements that we make with one another.

I was talking to some Cape Bretoners last night. Taxation came up. I said people like to talk about Ottawa, about money coming from Ottawa and going to Ottawa, but in reality what is really happening is that these are all agreements we make among ourselves. We agree in this place to share money with other citizens of this country for a variety of reasons.

I think these are the great things that Canada is about and why this symbol is so important to me and the Canadian people.

The flag debate has had a great tradition. I was a little younger but I can remember the flag debate in the House. I can remember the very day the flag went up the flagpole on this Chamber. Governor General Georges Vanier, Lester Pearson and hundreds of thousands of Canadians watched that momentous event. I also remember at that time the leader of the official opposition, Mr. Diefenbaker, with a tear in his eye watching the red ensign come down. It was a traumatic event in our history. It was a recognition of how we had changed. It was not about throwing out our old traditions.

A lot of people get involved in the monarchy thing. They always think we are tearing something apart. We are throwing something in the garbage. Our history cannot be stolen. Nobody can steal our traditions. What we can do is build on the strength of those traditions and move forward. I believe that is what the flag does.

I have not argued why I feel this should be a national holiday which is significantly different from what the Prime Minister did only a short few years ago. It should be a national holiday because it is a time that Canadians can reflect on their heritage, their culture and the things that make this a great country.

I know some people will suggest what is Canada Day if not that. I agree. Canada Day is another similar day on which we recognize our country. But flag day is unique in that it marks the evolution of our country in 1965. An argument a lot of people will bring is that we cannot afford flag day. That is another day off. People will not be working. Employers will have to pay for it. That is a lot of the argument brought up.

To give a comparison, Australia has 11 statutory holidays; Austria, 12; Finland, 12; France 11; our chief trading partner the United States, 11; Canada, only 10. In the scheme of things we can see there is room for another national holiday.

I will touch very briefly on the cost of that. It is a fair question and people are going to raise that issue. I have made a basic estimate of the labour costs for that national holiday of $1.5 billion. People will say that is a lot of money in lost productivity. It represents .16% of our economic activity. More important, it does not attempt to analyse what economic benefits would be gained by a national holiday.

Members may ask what benefits could there possibly be. Everybody will be sitting at home or hopefully going to flag day celebrations. How is that going to have an economic impact? I do not have to tell the House that we have Winterlude going on right now in Ottawa. People would use this to promote tourism and events and celebrate the flag. When people do that they have a tendency to go out and spend some money and so forth. So there is a direct economic benefit to Canadians to have this national holiday.

It is very timely that we are having this debate because Monday, February 15 is flag day. The time between New Year's Day and the next holiday, Good Friday, is about 91 days. In other words, it is over three months without a holiday. Many of my constituents and other people have said we need a break in the middle of winter. Winters are long and the days are short. It would be nice to celebrate our country and make something very important about that.

I have mentioned Canada Day. One problem I have with Canada Day is that it is in the middle of the summer. Invariably the very people we want to interest in this cultural evolution are our youth. Unfortunately they are out of school at the cottage or wherever and Canada Day kind of works but it does not work as well as I think it could.

That is why in my own riding I have been promoting flag day. It started off with one school the first year that the Prime Minister proclaimed that day. We went to the school and had a ceremony. We raised the flag and we talked about the great and wonderful things in this country. It was a wonderful thing to watch all these students with their Canadian flags singing O Canada. They were very proud of their nation and about who they are.

There was a teacher retiring. He was 55. He said “That is the culmination of my career. I have never been so proud to be a teacher at this school as this day”. That tells something about the emotion people feel about this event.

I have attempted with the help of the people on the school board to promote this because it is such a wonderful thing. Now it is at the point where I cannot go to all the flag day ceremonies in my riding. My whip is annoyed with me and other members as well because I will be away on Monday. I have three ceremonies that I am going to. Our biggest problem is supplies. We have to find hundreds and hundreds of paper Canadian flags.

It is a great event because we talk to those young people about the importance of Canada because it is their country. Clearly they are going to be the inheritors of this great nation.

We are all getting a little older and one of these days we are not going to be here. It is these young people who will step forward in our place and advance the cause of Canada. It is to these people that we are trying to promote the importance of this great nation.

We just had a debate on Bill C-55. I do not really want to get involved in that, but that is the whole issue that we are talking about, Canadian culture and our identity.

I think I have touched on most of the points that I wanted to raise. I wish this were a votable motion. I think it is a very important issue for all Canadians to identify the symbols which unite them as a nation and to honour them and make them even more important in their lives. If all of us did that on a day to day basis this would be a greater country.

I see some of my colleagues from the Bloc looking at me very auspiciously. It is a great experiment that we are all involved in here. We cannot unite under monarchial flags. It is time to realize we have a central purpose in this country and that is our flag. Our flag identifies that purpose.

I will close on that and I hope we have a very nourished debate about what I consider a very important issue.